The Names of the Wandering Jew
-
Upload
scott-jackson -
Category
Documents
-
view
224 -
download
0
description
Transcript of The Names of the Wandering Jew
-
Literary Onomastics Studies
Volume 2 Article 13
1975
The Names of the Wandering JewLivia Bitton
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/los
This Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @Brockport. It has been accepted for inclusion in LiteraryOnomastics Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @Brockport. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Recommended CitationBitton, Livia (1975) "The Names of the Wandering Jew," Literary Onomastics Studies: Vol. 2, Article 13.Available at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/los/vol2/iss1/13
-
The Names of the Wandering Jew
Livia Bitton
During the last decades of the sixteenth century, a
mysterious stranger appeared at the outskirts of villages
and towns of Europe. He was a tall, lanky man with long
hair and enormous, penetrating eyes. They called him
mostly Ahasverus, but some called him Isaac Laquedem, and
even Cartaphilus, Buttadeus, and some--Juan Espera en
Dios. Or, simply, the Wandering Jew He looked about
thirty, or a hundred, years old but the light in his eyes
and the wisdom in his voice, and the pain in his posture,
were centuries' old.
169
And in fact, he was centuries' old. He was a contemporary of Jesus, a Jewish shoemaker of Jerusalem, or,
perhaps, a gatekeeper of Pontius Pilate; then again, he
may have been an officer of the High Priest. At any rate,
he lived in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, and
when Jesus was going to his martyrdom, he stopped to rest
in front of this Jew's house. Whereupon the Jew came out
of his house and drove him on, with the words, 11GO on,
thou tempter and seducer, to receive what you have earned. "
-
170
Bitton 2
Or: 1 1GO on, do not rest here, 11 Jesus then turned to him
and said, " I go, but you will await me until I come again.''
Or: 11 I go but you shall not rest, you shall wander on the
earth until I come again. 11 And it came to pass, that
after the Crucifixion, the Jew was unable to return to his
family in Jerusalem but started on his endless journey
roaming the earth. He grew weary and old, his feet became
calloused, his clothes, threadbare, but he is unaware of
these physical aspects of his being. His only desire is
to do penance for his sin and find peace in death. This
is denied him, however. He must wander until the Second
Coming.
News of the Wandering Jew's appearance would stir ex
citement, even panic in some places. He was believed to
bring disaster--famine, flood, epidemic--or herald the end
of the world. In Moscow he was expected in the year 1666--1
the Antichrist come to unite the enemies of Christianity.
In other places, notably in Northern Europe, he was be
lieved to bless the plow and bring plenty to the soil.
The legend originally arose in the thirteenth century,
-
\
Bitton 3
1 during the height of scholasticism, when the Church at
tempted to connect church doctrine with science. Vague
references in the New Testament to eternal life, to the
Second Coming, to deathlessness as a possible reward or
punishment found substantiation in the legend of the Wan
dering. It was first recorded in several thirteenth
century monastic chronicles, but as folklore it did not
achieve wide currency. As a matter of fact, interest in
the legend waned so that during the fourteenth and fif
teenth century hardly anyone mentioned the legendary Jew.
Then suddenly, in the wake of the Protestant Reform
ation, the myth of the Wandering Jew sprouted wings, and
171
in a short time the mysterious stranger became a celbrated
phenomenon. Aftr his first, highly publicized appearance
in Germany, sightings of the Wandering Jew far outnumbered
our UFO sightings. like wildfire, news of the Wandering
Jew's appearance spread throughout all of Europe. The
first written account was a Germa.n imprint entitled,
Kurtze Beschreibung und Erzehlung von einem Juden mit
Namen Ahasverus, in 1602, followed by copies of it in
-
Bitton 4
different countries and different languages: Flanders,
Estonia Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland,
Ukraine, Podolia, etc.
Different versions of the legend mushroomed, and each
in version a different name was given to the Wandering
Jew--a baffling and fascinating variety of appellations.
172
The second chronicle to incorporate the tale of the
Jew in the thirteenth century gave him the name Cartaphilus,
and by that name he was known until his sensational entry
into the turmoil of the period of Reformation-Counter
Reformation. Then, he was introduced to the age as
.Ahasverus--an apparently new name unrelated to the former.
While Cartaphilus did not altogether disappear from usage,
the Protestant nae Ahasverus became the more popular from
the seventeenth century on, especially in Central and
Northern Europe. In the Mediterranean countries, another
name, Butta' had appeared as early as the thirteenth
century which now was transformed to Buttadeo, or Botadeo,
in Italy, to Boutedieu in France and to Votadio, or
Votaddio, in Spain and Portugal.
-
Bitton 5
To complicate matters even further, as early as the
beginning of the fifteenth century, the name Juan Espera
en Dios, and, somewhat later, Juan de Voto a Dios, appear
ed in other Spanish, Johannes Buttadeos in Latin, Joao
Espera em Dios, in Portuguese, Giovanni Servo di Dio and
Giovanni Votaddio in Italian, sources.
What is the origin and etymological development of
these names? In what way do they all relate to the Wan
dering Jew, revealing what attitudes and expectations of
that strange phenomenon so frightening yet so fascinating
in his suffering and deathlessness? Just as the figure
himself, the names he is called by are puzzling, to say
the least. They have positive and negative connotation,
they are either lqudatory or derogatory--just like the
mood which created this creature of dichotomy. Did he
stem from the tradition of reward or from the tradition of
punishment? Was he granted everlasting life as a special
divine dispensation, or was he condemned to eternity as a
curse? The tales and their versions support the latter
supposition, the names--the former.
173
-
/
Bitton 6
Beginning with Cartaphilus, the earliest name record
ed, the Greek 1 1kartos 11 ( strongly, well ) and 1 1philos 11 ( loved ) seems the closest explanation. This meaning of the name suggests that the Wandering Jew was indeed St.
John, the 11disciple whom Jesus loved, " ( Mat. 16:28; John 21:20-22) and to whom he promised life until the Second Coming. Cartaphilus' baptism to Joseph in the same
version of the legend carries the notion of favored status
even further, as the Hebrew etymology of the name suggests
"increase" of grace. A Christian legend of John's grave
having been empty when opened by disciples goes on to
buttress this aspect of the myth. Thus, Cartaphilus, the
11Well-loved-one11 wandered on the face of the earth not to
atone for his sin put to affirm his faith.
174
Buttadeus, when explained by attempting to apply an
ungrammatical solution based on Vulgar Latin-- 11 batuere"
( to beat, strike, shove ) , 1 1deus 11 ( God ) --reveals a negative connotation and points to the tradition of punishment of
which the legend may have been fashioned. According to
this allusion, the Wandering Jew was the shoe-maker, or
-
Bitton 7
gate-keeper, or officer who struck Jesus ordering him to
go on, and received life eternal as an exercise in peni
tence. All other forms of the name--Buttadeo, Botadeo, ,
Boutedieu, Votadio, Vottadio--are derivations affected by
local idiom. Hence, Buttadeus, the "god-batterer" was to
wander from age to age bearing the burden of guilt.
175
John, in the form of Johannes, or Juan, or Giovanni,
appended to the latter name, in combinations such as
Johannes Buttadeos, Giovanni Votadio (in a manuscript by Antonio di Francesco di Andrea, 15th century ) , or Juan de Voto, is a paradoxical joining of two opposing traditions.
In these versions of the legend, the Wandering Jew indeed
is an amalgam of sinfulness and benevolence, in some in
stances extending cres for diseases rather than causing
them. Juan de Voto is apparently an inverted form of Juan
Votadio.
The name Juan Espera en Dios perhaps has its origins
in an old Andalusian folktale. In it the Wandering Jew is
a God-baiter. He was insolent to Jesus and therefore he
must wander on the earth. On Good Friday, at 3 P. M., he
-
176
Bitton 8
sees a vision of Calvary--three crosses. At the foot of
the taller cross there stands a woman who calls out to him:
1 1Juan, espera en Di os! 1 1 (John, p 1 ace your hope in God!)
Obviously, this folktale and the name extracted from it,
are also a blend of opposing traditions: the name John
would indicate reward, the process of penitence, punish
ment. Giovanni Servo di Dio and Juan de Para Siempre (in
the manuscript of a Spanish Jesuit, Balthazar Gracian,
1584-1658) are simply referring to John 1 1the servant of
God11 and 11John the eternal ...
Isaac Laquedem of French and Flemish accounts of the
legend is probably a combination of the cant name for a
Jew--Isaac--and a corruption of the Hebrew 11from the East.11
But what about Ahasuaerus , Ahasverus, or Ahasver? What
tradition is accountable for this epithet of the Wander
ing Jew? Ahasuerus was the name of the Persian king who
figures prominently in the Biblical Book of Esther. He is
neither a Jew, nor wicked, nor was he in any way implicat
ed in punishment--sedentary or mobile. Why utilize this
name? It has been suggested that the Purim play in which
-
177
Bitton 9
Jews annually reenact the story of the Book of Esther
familiarized the figure of Ahasuerus with the Gentile
public making the name appear a likely choice for a Jew.
Although this suggestion would be unacceptable based on
historical reality of the sixteenth and s eventeenth cen
turies when Jews lived in total isolation from the Gentile
poulace and thus their Purim plays performed in the ob
scurity of their walled-in ghettos would have no impact on
Gentile practices of naming, one may assume that the
Esther story was familiar to the Gentiles from the Reform
ation drama in which it figured prominently. However, the
accessibility of the name does not explain its usage. The
Biblical figure of Ahasuerus does not, by any stretch of
imagination or scholarship, justify appending his name to
the Wandering Jew. If one considers fami 1 i a ri ty with a
Biblical story as impetus for name borrowing, and if the
story of Esther is a case in point, Mordecai is the only
possibility: since he is the only male Jew in the story
with implications of both punishment and reward attached
to his figure, an association with the Wandering Jew would
-
Bitton 10
be somewhat more plausible.
Some suggest Ahasuerus to be a garbling of the name
Cartaphilus. Why not a garbling of the name Juan Espera
en Dios? The Kurtze Beschreibung, the originator of the
name Ahasuerus, does report on the appearance of the Wan
dering Jew in Madrid, perhaps referred to by the above
name.
178
A conspicuous absence of a name for the Wandering Jew
in the Slavic versions of the legend seems to add to the
obscure quality of the figure and magnify his panic
potential. In these East-European versions, the Jew is
ominously referred to as 11The Jew" or the 11 Eternal Jew, " a
reference borrowed from the equally sinister 11der ewige
Jude.
If familiarity breeds contempt, unfamiliarity breeds
fear. This awesome figure born of obscure traditions,
cloaked in the mystery of supernatural powers, subject to
the dread of deathlessness, implicated in the Crucifixion,
associated with flood, famine, epidemic--is but the product
of fear, a symbolic projection of the terror of the unknown.
-
Bitton 11
In order to temper the effect of this awesome creation of
the mind, the earliest versions of the legend had ascribed
a name to him. And the name, the earliest. Cartaphilus,
is ideal for the objective of mitigating the message of
the legendary image. Suggestive of love, it undoubtedly
served as an effective counterpoint to the threatening
impact of the figure. Thus, the names Joseph, John, in
all its versions, especially Juan Espera en Dios, con
tinue this tendency of softening the myth.
179
In the profusion of literature which adapted the
legend of the Wandering Jew the name becomes insignificant
as myth develops into a symbol. The Wandering Jew be
comes Universal Man in the nineteenth century--the repre
sentative of all en in their struggle against God. He is
the sinner, the rebel, the penitent, the sufferer. is
at times Cain, at other times Ulysses or Job or Prometheus
or Faust. He is either Dumas ' Isaac, Croly's Salathiel,
Lewis' Ambrosio or Du Mauriers Svengali, or even Carlyle's
Professor Teufelsdrockh. Whats more--James Joyces Poldy
Bloom . . . Or, simply, the Wandering Jew of Zhukovsky,
-
Bitton 12
Gorky, Shelley and Wordsworth--a concept come of age, dis
pensing with names.
Livia Bitton
Herbert H. Lehman College
City University of New York
180
Literary Onomastics Studies1975
The Names of the Wandering JewLivia BittonRecommended Citation
tmp.1414163686.pdf.Cdrf1